


A Good Old Fashioned Fairytale

by Nwar



Category: Cinderella (Fairy Tale), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cinderella AU, Fairytale crossover, Fluffy, Fourth Wall Breaking, Humor, M/M, fairytale, tongue in cheek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-28 01:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20417963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nwar/pseuds/Nwar
Summary: John Watson woke every morning to the harmony of song birds.“Jesus fucking-- it’s not even fucking seven you little cunts,” John said.(John doesn’t believe in happily ever after. He gets it anyway.)





	A Good Old Fashioned Fairytale

**Author's Note:**

> This was hard for me to write because of how much I love and relate to Cinderella lol but John deserves his happy ending too

John Watson woke every morning to the harmony of song birds.  
“Jesus fucking-- it’s not even fucking seven you little cunts,” John said, as one on his bedpost narrowly avoided a slap from his sleep-clumsy hand.  
He sighed and gave up on the pillow over his ears. He swung his legs out of bed, cracking his back and stretching his bad shoulder. The birds, pushy little shits that they were, were making up his morning sponge bath.  
“Ah, fuck, cold,” John winced as they squeezed water on to him. He hurried out to put on his clothes; brown and blue linen in the sturdy shapes of the working class. He poked at the shutter which was swung inward so the birds could get in. If he had any sense, he’d fix it so he could sleep in until the rooster crowed. But it was probably better to be up before the quartermaster, anyway.  
Speaking of which-- John hurried down the stairs toward the stables. He heard the soft-pat footsteps of the house servant girl who lived in the tower room above his. He’d tried to chat her up, to no avail-- it seemed as though that girl was waiting for some kind of prince to rescue her or something. Wouldn’t catch good John Watson like that; he wanted a partner who was an equal. He worked for no woman.  
He started mucking out the stalls as soon as he was down, already so used to the smell that the earthy (read: shitty) scent of the stables did him no harm. He didn’t even hold his breath anymore, as he’d done when he was first sold to the castle by the orphanage. His back hurt from morning to night, cleaning the barn, brushing the horses, reshoeing the horses, feeding and watering the horses, saddling the horses when the members of the family wanted to ride, de-saddling the horses when they were done ten minutes later. Mainly it was the horses that he worked with.  
Today, he would be preparing the carriage to take the family to the grand ball, the one colloquially referred to as the “Chain and Ball” since the main purpose was to find a wife for the prince. John barely spoke to the house servants in general, but he had no doubt that the tower girl would be pining for some invitation.  
John held no allusions of the sort; he knew where he was and what he did. He wasn’t going to be magically swept up in a fairytale whirlwind that would place him at the foot of the king’s castle and make him so handsome that no princess could resist him. Their kingdom didn’t even have a princess; there was only the heir and the spare.  
Word traveled far, even without being able to read the newspaper (John had taught himself how to read from some bibles he’d found along his life’s road from the orphanage to the stables), and news of the royal family traveled faster. The most eligible was the younger brother, the heir was mentioned more rarely, and only in disappointment. Those who had seen the younger prince, or had seen his portrait in the royal gallery, said he was unusually handsome--emphasis on the unusual. He was, reportedly, anywhere from 5’10” to 6’4”, had brown or perhaps black hair, which was definitely curly or at least wavy, blue eyes that could be gray or green or perhaps amber depending on the time of day. The only thing anyone could seem to agree on was that he did not look like anyone else. He’d overheard a courtesan saying that even if she’d seen him out of his royal garb (insert giggles from the other courtesans) that she would know he was the prince simply because he did not look like a commoner.  
John did not believe a word of it. People were people, people in fancy clothes were royals, people in common clothes were commoners. Nobody looked different just because they had money, except for maybe that family in France that John had heard about that all looked like bulldogs from too much inbreeding.  
Or at least, John didn’t believe a word of it until he was putting away the step stools that rich people used to get in their carriage since stepping on a servant’s back was just an inch too far and watched the servant girl chasing after the retreating carriage. He watched her collapse dramatically on the bench of the fountain and sob loudly.  
“Bit of an overreaction, hmm?” a warm voice said.  
John whipped around. “Uh, yeah, I suppose. Wasn’t like she was going to go anyway, right?”  
The woman in the silky robe shrugged. Both of them turned back to watch the girl some thirty feet away. She messily rubbed her snot on her torn sleeve.  
“She’ll get another chance someday,” the woman sighed. “She’s had a hard life, she deserves it.”  
John snorted. “I’ve had a hard life, doesn’t mean I need to go to some fancy ball and get all gussied up for nothing.”  
The woman gave him a sideways look. He felt uncomfortable under the gaze, like she knew him very deeply despite only knowing him for a few minutes. “But you want it anyway, don’t you?”  
John shrugged. “It won’t change anything. I get one night there, but then I come back and I still have to wipe the horses down and put them up for the night. Not really worth the time wasted, is it?”  
“If you enjoy it, it’s not time wasted.” The woman walked slowly around John, looking him up and down. “At any rate, this little outfit you have on won’t do at all.”  
And that’s how, a few moments and a few miracles later, John was wearing a deep blue suit that nicely accentuated his arms toned from years of manual labor and brought out his eyes and riding a horse (he didn’t see any need for a carriage when it was just himself) toward the castle.  
The closer he grew to the royal castle, the deeper the anger in his gut burned. He observed the spiraling towers breaking through the evening clouds, the expensive tarrow-candle light burning brightly from every window, and the carriages lining up in front of the giant entranceway painstakingly carved with cherubs and felt bitterness. He took a deep breath to calm himself. Life wasn’t fair. Some people had castles. John had a bed stuffed with the hair from the horses he brushed. That was just the way things were.  
All the same, when I servant, only a few years younger than John, came to take the reins of his horse, John reached in his waistcoat pocket. A generous few gold coins magically filled his hand, and he happily handed it to the horse boy. He smiled with genuine happiness, and the anger burning in John’s throat dissipated.  
He walked through the entranceway, following the bulbous dresses of the gentry in front of him as he turned his head this way and that to see every inch of the foyer. It was gorgeous, more luxurious and bright than the castle that employed him. It was white marble, a huge empty space decorated with paintings and gilded edges that reflected light from the chandelier.  
He could smell the smoke over the smell of the hundreds bodies sweating in silk. It was remarkably similar to the stables when the quartermaster burned the rotting hay-- sweat, smoke, and earth. John took a deep breath, and made the conscious decision to let himself enjoy the next few hours, future be damned.  
It looked like part of the ballroom was dedicated to dancing, and part of the ballroom had an elevated section, with a few steps up to it. The elevated section held four chairs, and even from across the room and the press of bodies, John could tell what they were. A large throne for the king, accompanied by a smaller companion for the queen, and two chairs flanking them for each prince.  
John wanted to get closer-- it looked like the throne for the younger prince was empty, which might be interesting, but a complicated dance stood between him and the throne platform. It seemed like every member of the gentry knew all the steps to this line dance, but John knows he would fumble it entirely.  
John’s shoulders suddenly felt the weight of being so outside of everything these people were. He hadn’t taken dancing lessons. He didn’t even own the suit he was wearing; it’d be back to his sturdy stableboy clothes at midnight. He spotted an open door to a side room, and he eagerly stepped through it.  
On the other side, the room was darker. The windowpanes in the door off the ballroom let light in, but it quickly faded. There weren’t candles lit in here, and John was finally alone. He took a deep breath and blew it out.  
“Fucking stupid dances,” John muttered to himself, unconciously smoothing a hand down his suit jacket just to feel the rich fabric under his calloused fingers. “What are these rich bastards doing all day that they have time to learn all of that shit?”  
John jumped when a deep voice chuckled from the shadows. “Well, we’re learning all these dances, are we not?”  
John breathed shakily as the prince stepped out into the light from the ballroom doors. It was true; his face was strange-- long, elegant, almost too sharp to be attractive. Something in his eyes, his full mouth, offset the angles and made him heartbreakingly beautiful. Maybe the whispers were right. Maybe their blood really was blue-- John couldn’t imagine this ethereal creature being of the same species as the plain man he saw in the reflection of the trough.  
The prince smiled at him. John’s stomach dropped out through his feet. The way his hands were shaking now, his heart pounding against his ribs, made John feel a way that no woman he’d ever met could cause.  
“Right,” John breathed, feeling as though his brain was floating away from him.  
“Sherlock,” the prince said like a confession. “My name is Sherlock. A presume you don’t come to things like this often, being a stable hand?” He extended his hand for John to shake anyway. Strange royal that didn’t expect a bow.  
John took his hand, smiling already. Something about being in his mere proximity made him feel giddy. He could see why all the women of the kingdom lined up to make his aquaintance. He shook his head, processing what he’d heard. “How did you know I’m a stable hand?”  
Sherlock smiled broader, like that was exactly what he’d been hoping John would ask. “The stance, feet wide, used to standing for long hours-- your hands are visibly calloused, the spots indicative of using a wooden dowel, could be a broom but your arms are muscled enough that--”  
“My arms?” John asked. He smirked as Sherlock blushed. The prince! John had made the prince blush!  
“It’s not-- hard to see, even through your suit.” Sherlock took a deep breath and straightened. “I could teach you, you know.”  
“Teach me what?” John said, mirroring the way he stepped closer.  
“The dance. A dance, if you’d like.”  
John smiled, letting Sherlock tempt him into the shadows between the window panes. “Mm, all the fancy ladies out there are lined up to dance with you, why should I steal one?”  
“Oh, they’re all lined up for Mycroft,” Sherlock gently maneuvered John around and pointed out a tall man with a hooked nose surrounded by bored looking gentlewomen. “He’s the one that looks like a fat penguin.”  
John giggled. He turned back around to Sherlock and took his hand. Sherlock artfully arranged their arms so that neither of them were leading or following. Just dancing, together. Sherlock hummed along with the waltz coming muffled through the ballroom walls.  
He slowly slid his feet along the floor, giving John ample time to follow him and learn the steps. Before he knew what was happening-- he may have been distracted by Sherlock’s sweet scent-- John was spinning just like all the ton in the next room.  
John looked up with a proud smile to show Sherlock that he was following along perfectly and met Sherlock’s eyes. The rumors had been true in that way, at least. Sherlock’s eyes were inscrutable in color, changing from blue to gray to green to amber as they turned in and out of the candle light. John felt as mesmerized as if he were looking at a rainbow.  
Sherlock’s smile faded as the dance slowed, those beautiful eyes flickering down his face. John’s stomach twisted with excitement, and he pushed up on his toes to be closer. The prince bent his head down, too, his clean and sweet breath ghosting across John’s lips.  
The clock clanged loudly from the tower, and John startled violently, grabbing Sherlock’s bicep in a tight grip.  
“Ahh,” Sherlock gasped in pain, letting go of John to touch his arm in pain. “Wait, where are you going?”  
John was already halfway toward the door to the gardens, running as quickly as he could. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!”  
“Wait, you must tell me your name!” Sherlock shouted, reaching after him just to wince and grab the bruise again.  
John barely made it out to the driveway before his silk shoes turned back to worn leather. He unhitched his horse himself, and rode him.  
***  
The next morning, John awoke from the sweetest dream. He’d been dancing across a lake with Sherlock, no kingdoms or horses anywhere in sight, just the two of them waltzing on clear and cool water.  
For the first time in years, he had a smile on his face when he got out of bed. Maybe the woman in the robe had been right. Maybe he did deserve a night like that, just once, to make up for all the other days of his life.  
He didn’t get far into his normal routine-- he had only mucked out one of the stalls, before the quartermaster dragged him away. He had to ride into town, he told John. The king was calling upon every young man in the kingdom. With no more information than that, John rode into town as quickly as he could, desperately hoping they weren’t engaged in some war that was going to get him shot with another arrow.  
When he arrived in the town square, however, it was to the king and Sherlock standing above the commoners on the hanging platform (there were few things for entertainment in this kingdom other than hangings, so they stopped calling it a stage shortly after it was built). Sherlock was wearing only his loose white linen undershirt, pulled down to expose his right shoulder. The king was standing beside him on the platform, looking put out.  
“Honestly! One of you must know who did this!”  
“Please, whoever did didn’t mean to, you grace!” The baker’s wife begged. “Please don’t whip us.”  
Sherlock’s lip curled up. “I’m not going to whip you! What do you think princes do, really?”  
The king interrupted before Sherlock could insult their subjects any further. “What Sherlock means to say is, were any of you at the ball last night so that you may compare your hand to the bruise on my son’s arm?”  
John made his way up to the platform, and started climbing the steps. Two spears crossed to block his path. He rolled his eyes. “Sherlock!” he called up.  
Sherlock whipped his head around. “It’s him! Bring him up to show his hand!”  
John smiled at Sherlock. He gently laid his hand over the bruise, which did indeed fit perfectly. “Sorry, got a bit tense.”  
Sherlock smiled wonderingly at him. “I don’t mind. What is your name, stable boy?”  
John knocked him with his shoulder as the commoners and the royal entourage looked on in wonder at his casual treatment of his grace. “That’s John to you. John Watson.”  
***  
Sherlock and John were married a short time after. John imposed rules on treatment of servants, and Sherlock pushed Mycroft’s long nose in the fact that his younger brother got married before him. Sherlock learned to care for his own horses, and John learned how to dance with the ton. Cinderella didn’t ever become plot relevant, and they all lived happily ever after.

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s the inspiration; https://www.instagram.com/p/B1oFVEBlr00/?igshid=1p53on3hn2sou


End file.
